The district did not announce a replacement for Kumar, who had been with the district since 2010.

Several officials declined to comment on the resignation, but board member Diana Davila, who has an autistic nephew and a dyslexic nephew enrolled in HISD schools, said the district is ready to examine and change the ways it identifies and provides services to disabled students.

"I have mixed feelings. We know it's an issue, and we need to work to make sure all students get the services they need - regardless if they have teachers, district staff or trustees in their families," said Davila, who missed the vote because she arrived late. Fellow board members Rhonda Skillern-Jones, Manuel Rodriguez Jr. and Jolanda Jones also were absent.

Some parents and school officials had been calling for Kumar's removal since the Houston Chronicle reported in December that her department pressured schools to lower the percentage of students receiving special education services.

Embraced cap

The Chronicle investigation found that HISD slashed hundreds of positions from the special education department, dissuaded evaluators from diagnosing disabilities until second grade and created a list of "exclusionary factors" that disqualify students from getting services, among other tactics.

Records also showed that the largest school district in Texas enthusiastically embraced a controversial state policy that has effectively capped the percentage of students allowed to receive services at 8.5 percent, driving special ed enrollments down in the state to the lowest in America by far.

As a result, only 7.3 percent of HISD students now receive special education services - a lower rate than in any other of the 50 biggest American cities other than Dallas. The four lowest cities in the country are all in Texas - Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and Arlington. Cleveland ranks first in America, with 22.5 percent of students receiving special education services, followed by Milwaukee at 20.6 percent and Boston at 20 percent.

Federal law obligates public schools to provide special education services to all eligible children with disabilities. About 13 percent of students nationally receive services.

Kumar could not be reached for comment Thursday.

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After the Chronicle story was published in December, she wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Education defending the district and saying that its special education work and goals had been mischaracterized.

"The decline in HISD's special education population resulted from an intentional decision to more thoughtfully address the needs of students who, in the past, would have been labeled under special education. In HISD, we believe that serving children should be our goal, not putting a label on them," Kumar wrote.

In an interview with the Chronicle in September, before a story that revealed the controversial state policy, Kumar defended the district's low special education rate by claiming that labeling students as "special education" is harmful because teachers have lower expectations for special education students.

"If the disability label was going to produce better results for kids, then we should have all kids line up. Unfortunately, that's not the case," Kumar said, noting that special ed students score worse on standardized tests than kids without disabilities. "Special education does not deliver better outcomes for kids."

Advocates angered

That statement did little to assuage critics. In fact, it angered several advocates, including Bob Sanborn, the president of prominent education advocacy group Children at Risk, who called for Kumar to be fired.

The statement and the revelations about special education in HISD also angered several school board members, according to emails newly obtained by the Chronicle.

"I am utterly disgusted in reading this article," Davila told the other school board members and HISD administrators the day after the story ran.

Skillern-Jones was even more blunt.

"I don't care to listen to (Kumar) any more," she wrote. "I've asked on multiple occasions for something to be done about her and her department and sent many parent complaints as well as been repeatedly informed of these things by staff."

She continued, "We wouldn't be at this point if we had done right by these children instead of dismissing her arrogant posturing and allowing her to continually perpetuate these practices."

Kumar had long been a well-respected member of the state's special education community. Before coming to HISD, she had worked for the Region 4 Education Service Center, which oversees schools in the Houston area. She told the Chronicle in the September interview that she had "worked closely" with state officials on special education policies, including the controversial benchmark.

'Hope to see real changes'

State officials have now vowed to eliminate the benchmark, and the U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether students were harmed. As part of the investigation, federal officials visited HISD earlier this month.

The news of Kumar's departure came the same day as HISD launched its own internal review in earnest with the first meeting of a special committee to review the district's special education operations. Among its first tasks is to find an independent firm to audit the district's special education department, which has not been done since 2010.

The committee is slated to present its findings and recommendations to the board either at the end of this year or early in 2018.

Davila said the committee will provide something that's been long-missing in HISD's discussions about special education - parent input.

Other board members promised a transparent and comprehensive review.

Trustee Anna Eastman, who refused to comment specifically on Kumar's resignation, said the board has told HISD administration that serving and identifying all eligible students for special education is one of their priorities.

"I hope to see real changes both in the classroom and with kids," Eastman said.